A wide variety of keyboards are utilized for data entry terminals and remote control terminals. More particularly many laptop computers, personal digital assistants, palmtops, color and black-and-white notebooks, sub-notebooks, remote teleprompter presenter screen-keyboards, pagers, alpha-numeric pager-organizers, desktop computers, audio and/or video devices for recording, editing and/or playback, facsimile machines, TVs, video games, airplane entertainment consoles, avionics systems, automotive systems, navigation systems, musical instruments and the like utilize keyboards of one or more keys for inputting of information. One of the issues with such devices is their use in environments where there is not sufficient light to see the keys. For example, in an airplane or the like, while using a portable computer, the lights may be turned off or lowered due to the viewing of a movie or the like on the airplane. It would be useful to have an illuminated keyboard which will allow one to actually see the keys when inputting information. Similarly, in a situation where there are several people in a particular room looking at a TV program or the like, in the evening, in which it is determined that most of the normal lights should be turned off, it would similarly be useful to provide a keyboard which is lighted. When using a camcorder in low light conditions, it would be useful to have a lighted keyboard for functions such as rewind, fast forward, play, record, exposure control, titling, and others.
There are many lighting arrangements utilized for keyboards. However, these conventional lighting arrangements have the disadvantage of requiring an additional light source which can consume power for illuminating the keypads as well as requiring relatively complex lighting arrangements for providing such illumination.
Accordingly, what is needed is a lighting arrangement for a device that includes a keyboard that is low cost, easy to implement, does not consume additional power and is adaptable to existing devices, including portable devices. The present invention addresses such a need.